What Is a Dance Belt?

A dance belt in classical ballet is a thin piece of elastic that is worn around the dancer's waist to help the dancer train the body to stay level and balanced. Understand the uses of a dance belt with help from a ballet artistic director in this free video on ballet dancing.

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Video Transcript

This is Lynda DeChane from the South Florida Ballet Theater; home of the Florida Princess Ballet School in Hollywood, Florida. Let's talk about what a dance belt is. A dance belt is a piece of elastic; sometimes a string or rope or a pre, pre-bought dance belt from a dance store that a dancer, young student or professional would wear around her waist. She wears this belt to train herself to remember to keep her body in line; level hips and stray across with the shoulders that match the belt also as well. Many dancers wear this during this class time; they use it to, sometimes even hold up their tights; but basically the dance belt is made specifically to train the dancer to stay level, square as we call it. In addition to a dance belt a student must come to class totally prepared. She should have her hair secured in a tight band at the top of her head. One of the things you might need to do this is to purchase some hair knots at a local store; sometimes even your grocery store will carry them. We also need to have Bobby pins and if you like to dress yourself up a bit, you can have some flowers and ribbons in your hair as well. We also prepare ourselves by wearing in a blank or pink leotard which is standard attire for dance and they also, well of course, they then put their dance belt which is someday, at one point on stage will be replaced by a skirt, tutu or other items that the dancer might wear to perform. This also helps with their alignment of their body and their balance on stage. Dancers will also wear pair of tights, pink tights; this is also to secure the dancers legs as a lot of times when we're dancing it's so forth we get sweaty, it's better to have tights to cover our legs up and also followed by a pair of ballet slippers. The ballet slipper is another whole incident. Getting your ballet slippers prepared for classes is very important.